Some of the camera-equipped Google Street View cars that map the world s streets are getting new equipment that will also measure urban air quality.
Google is partnering with San Francisco-based Aclima, which designs environmental sensor networks, to equip Street View cars with devices that can measure air pollutants.
Aclima recently installed the technology on three Street View cars in Denver for a month-long experiment conducted with NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project will expand to the Bay Area this fall.
The sensors can measure harmful pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds.
Those pollutants are similar to what is tracked by stationary measurement sites operated by agencies such as the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which monitors more than two dozen locations from Santa Rosa to Gilroy under federal and state requirements.
But we don t do mobile, we don t have something on a truck that constantly moves, said air quality district spokesman Ralph Borrman in an interview Thursday.
How the new data will be applied for public or consumer use is not yet known, but having detailed pollution data at the street and neighborhood level could affect everything from real estate values to where we choose to build new schools or playgrounds.
Above: A promotional image of the Alcima-Google partnership to track pollution with Google Street View cars. Courtesy Alcima.
